Orbit expands homeownership offer with £4.6m funding

Monday, 09 January 2017

Orbit, one of the UK’s largest developing housing associations, is expanding its affordable homeownership offer thanks to £4.6million funding from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).

Awarded through the HCA’s Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme, the £4,620,000 funding will support the delivery of 154 new affordable homeownership properties.

With an 86 percent rise in the number of shared ownership homes it sold last year, Orbit is seeing a continued demand for the part buy, part rent product. To help increase capacity, the majority of the HCA funding (£3,870,000) will be used for the development of 129 shared ownership homes across the Midlands, East and South East.

The remaining £750,000 will support the expansion of Orbit’s affordable homeownership offer, with the introduction of its first 25 rent-to-buy homes in Corby, Northamptonshire.

Maggie McCann, development director for Orbit, said: “We are delighted to have secured this funding, and continue our strong partnership with the HCA. As well as helping us to provide over 150 much-needed new homes, this funding will also enable more customers to achieve their homeownership aspirations with the introduction of a new affordable rent-to-buy product.”

Orbit has been awarded the funding as it enter its 50th year of building communities, and just over a month after celebrating a major development milestone of 5,000 new homes completed since 2013, against its target of 12,000 homes by 2020.

You can find your own home with Orbit here, or discover more ways to buy here.